By the 13th year
by freckles-knows
Summary: 13 year old Amy Pond is on a school trip, and miserable.


**A/N: Well, haven't been here in a while. So this is a Wholock fic…. This is also my personal canon as to why Amelia changed her name to Amy. Well, not the Wholocky-ness of it, but just her reasoning that she uses. Off we go!**

**Disclaimer: I still own nothing.**

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><p>Amy was sulking. It was the week after her 13th birthday and she was on a school trip. Normally this wouldn't be all bad. But, Mels had been suspended and Rory was laid up with a flu. Not to mention she had just turned 13.<p>

Ordinarily when someone turned 13 they were excited. They got a fancy new 'teen' tacked on to the end of their name and they could make fun of everyone who didn't have that until they caught up.

But Amy Pond was anything but ordinary.

The age had a different meaning for her. It meant that it had been over half of her conscious life, and almost half of her whole life, that she had been waiting for her Raggedy Doctor. Six years ago, she had been 7. Six years ago he had sat in her kitchen eating fish fingers and custard. Six years ago he had told her that her name belonged in a fairy tale.

Six years ago she thought she would be in one when she had packed up her bag and waited for him.

It had been 5 years since her first psychiatrist, 4 ½ since she had bitten him, 3 since everyone around her had seemingly given up all hope for her sanity, 2 years since she had made her most recent toy related to him, and 1 year since she started to think he might not come back for her and that she might never get her fairy tale.

6 months ago she had decided that if he hadn't shown up by her 13th birthday she was going to put it all behind her. There was no way that Amelia Pond was going to spend half her life waiting around for someone to come take her away.

Her birthday had come and gone.

The day after she marched into school and announced that she would only be responding to Amy from now on. No need for a fairy tale name if there was no fairy tale. No one, not even Mels or Rory, had questioned her.

And now here she was, at some stupid museum full of stupid, old things, without her stupid friends, but with plenty of stupid classmates.

"Boring," she huffed out.

"Yes, quite. But I do rather think that teacher over there is trying to get your attention."

Amy looked up quickly. She hadn't noticed that her spot against the wall had been infiltrated by someone else. A rather tall, good-looking, someone else. He looked like he was almost in University, or was already. His black hair was curly, and his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of a ridiculously long coat. His eyes looked almost colorless, and they were staring at her with an intensity that she realized should make her uncomfortable. It took her a minute to remember she should probably respond.

"Excuse me?"

"Those people over there," he flourished his fingers in the direction of her class, "are calling for someone named Amy and looking directly at you."

"Ah, damn. I keep forgetting."

"Changing your name, then?" The boy put on a smirk that was bordering on unfriendly. "How quaint, and completely unnecessary at this point in your life."

Amy stood her ground, pinching in her eyebrows at what the stranger said.

"Yeah, like you would know. A man falls out of the sky in a blue box and tells me my name is a fairy tale, promises to come back in 5 bloody minutes, and then disappears for the rest of my life. I get put with different people who keep telling me I'm crazy, and I keep getting in trouble at school for fights when they try to tell me he isn't real. I think I'm entitled to change my name to try and forget that, as it is _my name._" She looked him straight in the eyes as she ranted, trying to throw her words at him like stones; It might have been unfair of her to take out her frustrations on this stranger, but she didn't particularly care at the moment.

Plus, all it seemed to do was make his gaze intensify.

"The Doctor? You've met The Doctor Well then, not as boring as you look."

"Excuse me, what? Did a classmate of mine put you up to his? Are you Ernie's older brother? Because I swear I'll-"

"Ernie? Who? Unimportant. What is important is that you've met The Doctor. He is quite real, and infinitely more interesting than anyone you will probably ever meet, especially where you're from. Leadworth? Dull."

She was starting to get flustered. "How do you even-"

"Unimportant. Listen, little girl, the name is Sherlock Holmes." He handed her a ridiculously posh business card. "Everyone else you know is an idiot, and even if 100 idiots tell you something, that doesn't make it true. The Doctor is real. He might have forgotten you, he might have gotten distracted and you may never see him again. But, he does exist. Do not let these cretins tell you otherwise. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to see a man about a skull." He turned on his heel and his coat flourished around him in such a dramatic way that Amy figured he must practice it. Often.

She looked down at the business card in her hand and tried to figure out what this all meant. Someone else was claiming to know her Raggedy Doctor. Someone thought that she wasn't crazy. He thought she was dull, but that was much better than thinking her crazy.

But, then again, the person who was trying to give her confidence was a University boy who had his own business cards and seemed to practice coat flourishing. Amy wasn't sure if that was a big vote of confidence.

She pocketed the card and decided then not to mention this to anyone. They already thought she was mad, no reason to let them know about men in twirling coats.


End file.
